“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world” (1 John 4:1-3).
Religious pluralism is found everywhere throughout the world. There are approximately 2 billion people who call themselves Christians, more than 1 billion people that call themselves Muslims, more than 850 million people that call themselves Hindus, more than 600 million people that call themselves Buddhists, approximately 150 million people that label themselves Atheists, and approximately 14 million people born as Jews. If we missed your faith, philosophy or movement, we apologize.
The focus here is on religious pluralism – relativism and compromise within the Christian church and not the pluralism among the world’s major religions and philosophies. It is evident that there is a growing movement towards pluralism, relativism and compromise within Christianity itself. Many people claim to be Christians because they profess belief in Jesus Christ. However, notions of “belief” have taken on a wide-range of definitions in the postmodern Christian church.
Specifically, more and more Christian leaders want to escape the label of intolerance and narrow mindedness. They want to be accepted in a postmodern world where everyone is saying, “My truth is different than your truth” and “My way to God is different than your way to God” – so don’t judge others based on outdated books, rules and morals.
According to this view, the great world faiths, including Christianity, are valid spheres of a salvation that takes characteristically different forms within each–though consisting in each case in the transformation of human existence from self-centeredness to a new orientation toward the Divine Reality. The other religions are thus not secondary contexts of Christian redemption but independently authentic paths of salvation. The pluralist position is controversial in Christian theology because it affects the ways in which the doctrines of the person of Christ, atonement, and the Trinity are formulated.
Liberal “Christians” engage in dialogue with the other major religions through the World Council of Churches’ subunit on Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and Ideologies and the Vatican’s Secretariat for Non-Christians, as well as a variety of extra-ecclesiastical organizations, such as the World Congress of Faiths. A multitude of inter-religious encounters takes place throughout the world, many initiated by Christian and others by non-Christian individuals and groups.
The practice of pluralism is leading the world into the Tribulation years when there will be a one-world religion headed by the False Prophet. Those who wish to ignore and reject the basic truths of biblical Christianity are heading for a very rough time. Be sure that you understand that anything outside of God’s inherent Word is a false teaching.
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me'” (John 14:6).
“Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12)
“For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11).
For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time” (1 Timothy 2:5-6).
Notes
http://www.allaboutgod.com/all-subjects.htm